Hide the spoons...

[bythewhiteelm]

Who: Adora Cain
When: around lunchtime
Where: outside the hotel (and hopefully to medical attention)
What: Adora's arrival [COMPLETE]

Comments

[cptn_browncoat]

Mal was out for a walk. He'd thought about taking a car. And he thought about taking a horse. But today he was going for a walk.

As usual, the oppression of freedom preyed on his mind. No ship. No crew. Just a group of people caught in a place where they had no hope of leaving.

He walked the circuit once... twice... three times. The hotel still showed up on the horizon just as it disappeared behind him. He was on his fourth pass when he saw... something. A person perhaps. This person didn't look so good. Mal altered his course and made his way towards the figure only to find a very battered looking woman.

"Shèngjié de mǔqīn, fú (Holy mother of Buddha) he breathed as he reached out to catch her. Images of River in her bad moments flicked through his brain. "How long have you been out here miss?"

[leverage_hitter]

Jogging sucked. Jogging in the heat sucked. Jogging in the dry heat sucked worst of all. If he hadn't been going loopy, climbing the walls for something to do, he wouldn't have put himself through this. No, that was a lie. He would have, even then. His body had been his weapon for years and weapons maintenance was order number one when in a hostile territory. This place was just about as hostile as one could get. Subtly so. Insidious.

Goddamn, but he wanted to go home.

As he finished his first circuit of the Hotel grounds, just starting to work up a sweat, he caught sight of movement out of his peripheral vision and looked to see a figure staggering toward the hotel. The gait was a familiar one... injury and pain. He adjusted his course and picked up speed, arriving just as another man did. He skidded to a stop in the sand and watched him reach for her.

"What happened?"

[bythewhiteelm]

The sun was bright. Not the normal two-suns bright, either. It was actually brighter. Thank the Gale that her eyes were swelling shut, because it did block quite a bit of the light. If she was a bit more coherent, Adora might consider that it was brighter simply because there was nothing on the ground to deflect the light.

She could see the fuzzy outline of a person - a man, by their size - and she stopped, turning her right shoulder away. She wasn't going to be able to run. Another step and she could see the coat. "Longcoat" she managed in a whisper, and took another step back.

Then he spoke, a calm voice; a nice voice. He didn't sound like a Longcoat. "I.." she started, trying to focus long enough to discern which side he was on. Forget it, she was too tired. Maybe he'd just finish her off. It was about that moment that her legs finally gave out. How long had she been walking, anyway?

"Where?" She managed before another voice could be heard. Adora turned her head in that direction, but she didn't see who the voice belonged to.

[cptn_browncoat]

Mal caught the woman easily in his arms and shifted so he blocked the sun as best he could. She was beat up bad, and he was dismayed to see her frightened reaction towards him.

"I don't know. I was out walking and suddenly she was here," he said to the other man who'd shown up. "Ain't ever seen her before neither. But we need to get her inside. To the infirmary." It was quite obvious, but he was good at obvious. Mal picked the woman up carefully. "We're from the hotel Miss. Gonna get you a nice glass of water and find a doctor to heal you."

He hoped Owen was in the infirmary. Hell, he hoped the infirmary would be easy to find.